The real stories from inside the F1 paddock

Virtual freedom fighters?

The police in Montreal are investigating an online campaign designed to disrupt the Canadian Grand Prix on June 10. The threats have been made under the Anonymous banner.

Anonymous is a loose collective of hackers and styles itself as an organisation that promotes access to information, free speech, and transparency. However, as it has not apparent leadership, there is no real strategic direction and as a result, anyone can start claiming to be part of Anonymous and can attack anyone or anything. Inevitably this will be the undoing of the movement as the more extreme Internet vigilantes will destroy any good that has been done, by taking things too far. There have been hundreds of arrests around the world relating to Anonymous and the many different actions that have been taken in its name.

Hackers claiming to be part of Anonymous attacked various F1-related websites during the recent Bahrain Grand Prix and now there is action in Canada, where protesters have decided that the Canadian Grand Prix is a symbol of the government and are attacking it. This is against the backdrop of civil disorder that has been going on since February in a dispute over university fees. This has escalated with the introduction by the Quebec government of Bill 78, emergency legislation that some believe is a threat to the liberal ways of Canada.

An email entitled “Notice to Grand Prix Visitors” has been sent to more than 100 people who bought Grand Prix tickets online, warning that roads to the circuit will be blocked, that fires would be started at the track, hotels in the city may be attacked and people using the city’s banks might also be targets. Hackers using the Anonymous umbrella have already posted personal details of some F1 fans online, having broken into a ticket-selling website.

The above actions and threats are clearly criminal in intent and thus the police have taken an interest. People claiming to be Anonymous say that they will take down F1 websites and wreck anything F1-related it can find on the Internet.

The downside of all this is that driving F1 fans away from Montreal may end up causing economic hardship in the city. The race survives on ticket sales, as the government has limited the amount of money it will spend on the event. In the past when the race was threatened with cancellation, the local authorities and chambers of commerce etc have scrambled to get it back on the calendar, aware of the important economic impact the race has on the city, and the good image that it spreads of Montreal around the world.

If Anonymous wishes the city to get a bad image and to damage the economy of the region – in order to hurt the elected government – then it can do so, but it must also accept that its actions may be deemed unacceptable by the law.

It is not difficult to understand why many will conclude that rather than working for good, Anonymous is, in reality, behaving like an Internet terrorist organisation and whoever is behind these attacks should be apprehended and sent to jail.

Anonymous is a loose collective of hackers and styles itself as an organisation that promotes access to information, free speech, and transparency.

Next time Anonymous does something like promoting access to information, free speech and transparency in Syria, China, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Russia or North Korea they will be able to claim with a degree of credibility that such are their goals.

In the meanwhile, they are nothing but a bunch of Asange-infatuated, radicals that have got their priorities and moral compass completely fucked up.

“Assange infatuated” ? Do you mean that all the shit exposed by Assange would have been better left out of public view ?

I think you’re confused. I thought Joe’s piece managed to stay pretty factual. You’re not. And it must be said that F1 is now on everyone’s radar because of Bahrain – one of the many downsides of that mucky little weekend which will only become evident with time.

“Do you mean that all the shit exposed by Assange would have been better left out of public view”

Mostly? Yes. I’ve previously worked in a TSPV role and we use cables as the only method of sending information from embassy posts to the relevant agency/minister back in the home country. That information is largely not need to know for the general public and it puts lives at risk.

Splitting hairs I know, but Assange et al’s refusal to edit the cables or at least pay some reasonable care to not put people’s lives at risk made me view Wikileaks as less of a crusading defender of free speech and more attention mongering for it’s founder.

Assange did nothing good. And yes… he should not have exposed those things. Secrets are a fact of life. Everyone has them. Even countries. And secrets are such for a reason. Stealing someones diary and posting the pages on every locker in the school is bound to have some unfortunate consequences for not only the owner of the diary… but the individuals he/she may have written about in it. I hope my analogy is not lost on you. The sad thing is it is not a diary that was stolen and shared… but rather Tope Secret government documents. Wars can be started by doing that. He was not being ‘noble’ by trying to promote ‘transparency’. He was being a theif. And an instigator. Not everything needs ‘transparency’.

Much more of this and Henry Kissinger will start looking very very good indeed. At least he had a mind and articulated a policy. These days, it’s all diversion and nonsense without any clear message to the public. Fine, these regimes are bad. Well, if so, let’s get some unambiguous consensus and articulate what needs to be done. Better than just always mistranslating Ahmadinejad.

I don’t personally believe that Assange’s personality has anything to do with anything much. You can understand how he might tend to see conspiracies behind simple things, simply by observing how the Americans are treating his source.

In any case, I can’t see either that any of this has much to do either with F1 or with this particular story. Sorry to be off-topic Joe, but it wasn’t me that brought this up.

Im surprised to hear you take this tone Joe. Once the sport becomes a tool of political protest, a position which you and many other journalists support to support around Bahrain, it is open season.

I know it’s tired but I genuinely don’t think that sport should be used as a tool of political change. The value judgements involved aren’t an area which sports management and media have any competence in.

“If Anonymous wishes the city to get a bad image and to damage the economy of the region – in order to hurt the elected government – then it can do so, but it must also accept that its actions may be deemed unacceptable by the law.

It is not difficult to understand why many will conclude that rather than working for good, Anonymous is, in reality, behaving like an Internet terrorist organisation and whoever is behind these attacks should be apprehended and sent to jail.”

No it isn’t. Joe simply states what Anonymous can do if it wishes to do so. That is a fact not an opinion. He also states that it is not difficult to understand why many ‘will conclude’ something. Again, that is a fact not an opinion.

There is a huge difference.

Try reading what is actually written.. not what ‘you think’ is written.

The statement that what the protestors are doing might be against the law is expressing a position because equally they could use tactics that are within the law but Joe doesn’t express that.

Also his assertion the the GP is good for Montreal and that if it goes it’ll be bad for Montreal seems to be an opinion rather than one founded on facts – F1 makes many people money, the locations that host them don’t seem to be part of that group.

May, andy, may. That’s the key. The wording was “its actions may be deemed unacceptable by the law”. They have threatened blockades, fires, attacks on hotels, and other things. Which of these, do you think, may be deemed entirely legal by the law? No, that’s ok chaps, don’t worry about us cops, we brought marshmallows! Pointing out that public disorder and violence might be against the law isn’t an opinion, merely a statement of fact.

Also, I’m assuming you know nothing of Montreal’s history with the GP. I was there in 2009 and I can tell you that the city hurt, and hurt a lot, through the loss of the race that year. There were deep economic and social impacts that the government hadn’t even thought about. Montreal’s summer starts with the Grand Prix weekend, and it is a celebration that takes over a large portion of the city, not just the circuit. It’s ironic that you accuse him of presenting opinion as fact and yet you obviously have done exactly the same yourself.

Anonymous are i think just kids in it for the ego trip. But attacking or invading or trying to invade or threatening to invade sensitive governmental systems probably legally classifies them as terrorist. So, it’s probably fair use, just needs qualification.

As our galaxy collides with Andromeda and spirals into extinction,somewhere on Earth a 40-stone spotty post-teenager with no social skills will be sat at a computer keyboard in his unkempt bedroom, pounding out anonymous threats to ‘the system’.

Computers may well have enhanced learning, but one thing I hold to be true is that you can’t educate pork, and as much as we licence cars, motorcycles and guns, it’s time we did the same for computers.

But isn’t Facebook effective at keeping the technologically illiterate off the internet? I can’t think of any other reason so much money was thrown at it . .

I’m uncertain however that information is equivalent to learning. As a dear old pal said, “Cambridge was no fun, but it taught me how to think”. It’s the concentration factor. Look at the TED talks. They have become seriously dilute, and no kind of “social voting” really makes up for a serious faculty. It took very very much longer for this dropout to learn to think, and when it comes say to maths, how does Wikipedia teach that? It’s one thing if you have an existing talent, another to have a prof say, “well, watch out for this and that, and the reason it works is because of [insert something related but non obvious]” For anecdotal proof of that, just look how far reaching are major conjecture proofs across mathematical disciplines.

Sorry, Andrew, bad form, only I wasn’t calling you out the other day on the storage stuff. I wrote all those long posts not to put you down, but because there’s some very broad interests here in the discussion, and thought to expand a bit I knew. Also I’m sore, for the one time a storage array went down on me. I was so upset (and so put back) I spent years deep diving that tech. Pax?

In Bahrain the protesters and the main opposition party (Al Wefaq), went out of their way to say that Grand Prix staff and spectators would not be targeted, where by contrast the Montreal protesters and their allies have specifically made threats to Grand Prix spectators.

So I wonder, where are the bandwagon jumpers now?

They were quite happy to support the Bahrain protesters, who wanted to take away the right to vote for women, and the right of women to stand for election.

It’s like a perverse Animal Farm… when so-called ‘freedom fighters’ become the enemy of free will! (i.e. honest race fans doing what they enjoy and work hard all week for).

A cowardly and pathetic way to make a very confused ‘point’ – if such public disruption is ever justifiable then the perpetrators (at the very least) need to be clear on just who they are representing? and what is it they want to achieve?

They are left-wing “students” (add to that anti-capitalist, anarchist band wagon jumpers) with some fascist ideologies, by committing themselves to violence they are essentially turning themselves in to a paramilitary force. Make your point fine, but to deny others the right to carry on with their lives and impose your thinking upon them is a fascist tendency.

“..but to deny others the right to carry on with their lives and impose your thinking upon them is a fascist tendency.”
The right has not “cornered the market” on this behavior. Indeed, the LEFT, through near total control of the mass media, the school “industry” and “culture”, are masters, par excellence!

Although I agree with what you wrote, the issue seems conflated, that an emergency law was enacted which permitted the use of and in particular uncircumscribed amendment of any other law to effect the aim of quelling disruptive elements. That is rather worth complaining about. If you’re here in the UK, research the Civil Contingencies bill of 2004. I would be in favour of a joke protest at that, politely writing to members of the judiciary “Ha ha, you have no power any more.” But they most certainly do get it, mostly. As in far less fooled than the public. I thought at the time, “Oh, blast it being Catholic, I can’t now be elected the first dictator of my country!” Sorry, a bit glib, but my bottom line is there are far better ways to send a message than this, if you want to connect to a wide electorate.

It is not widely known that “Darlin’ ‘Arold” (Wilson) was right, (paranoid but still correct) he was being spied upon by MI5 and other uk agencies, who were extremely worried, enough so that an alternative emergency government was planned with Lois Mountbatten at the helm together with martial law. Of course nowadays we would not have enough soldiers for martial law.

That’s in no small part because our favourite pipe smoker took a very unusual and large money prize from a institute in the GDR.

Sometimes, there is good reason to be paranoid.

Sir Anthony Wedgewood Benn of course traded his pipe, and name, for a workers cafe mug of tea.

My family were very suss about Wilson. Funny, on one side, my dad, a card carrying commy. His brother, very very patched in with the establishment. Neither liked the guy. My dad because he saw straw man politics, uncle because of the technocratic failures. Most especially the cheapening of the N plant designs, because my uncle was then heavy into N tech planning. The early designs might have survived the Fukushima Daiichi event.

I am all mad now, because of a flood in supposedly safe storage, so lost, but there are now maybe only one or two photos left of my Uncle not strict Crown Copyright. But if I could paint, I could replicate any of them from memory. In every shot, at a discrete distance, would be the grey suit minders for my Uncle. They didn’t like him going on holiday. But what was so cool, was he was on one occasion holidaying in post war Vienna, and so I like to think of The Third Man. You’d have delighted in hearing his ever so slightly cool, imperturbable delivery.

But for all that, simpler and mostly safer times, I reckon. Dint the trauma, of course. This Assange thing disgusted me. Of course curiosity got the better of me and I took a peek. But it is morally wrong, in my book, what he did. Now, if he instead took the files, got someone to publicly verify they were real cables, but disclose NOT a single one, and then publicly announced that security is shot to ribbons, that would have been a different matter. If secrecy and privacy was not valuable in life, why would all these “netizens” who so frequently demand “openness” hide behind pseudonyms, handles, proxies, head fakes, language fakes . . Now, I think for a certain kind of public figure, they should reveal what they have been writing in public under another name. But that’s a narrow case. I have a ongoing joke with a pal who has made extremely well from internet tech, who moaned I “was off the net” that he simply got blinded by the tech, and should have done some old fashioned spade work. At least we’re in touch again!

I highly recommend anyone wanting an intelligent and sensitive human take on security of any kind to go read this chap’s books: https://www.schneier.com/

Another well written blog Joe. Criminal and terrorist springs to mind. I don’t believe you need bombs or assault rifles. Whoever they are, they are abusing their position and as we found out from Bahrain, everything is not always what it seems in the press.

The Bahrain government must be smiling about how F1 is being used in Canada for another “cause”.

It should be noted that the protest in Quebec are over university tuitions going up, not human rights. The students are organized and have a recognized leadership and are smart enough to realize that causing disruption to the race weekend will not bring the support of the taxpayers, which they need. The draconian law that Premier Charest put in place is being opposed by the general population as well as the students; it tramples on their right to assemble and protest.
I know nothing about Anonymous but as a very liberal Canadian I would be POed if there were any sporting event attacked in the name of student tuition protest. Wave some placards, disrupt some traffic, occupy a government office, chain yourself to Charest’s limo, but leave the tourists alone. The tuition rise is a paltry sum over a lifetime compared to ruining World opinion; the Carest law is a problem. Enjoying Canada is the right of any tourist; please come and ignore the rukus; it’s safe and we’ll get it sorted out.

Brent: Is it correct, as I read in a UK newspaper, that university fees in Quebec are currently very much lower than in the rest of Canada, and that the Quebec universities themselves are asking for fee increases to improve their tuition possibilities ?

Yes, tuitions are much lower, generally less then half. The government is actually just looking to lower their subsidy and the total of the increase they are looking for will still leave the tuitions lower then the rest of the country.
The real problem , now, is the law the Quebec government has passed, to combat the protests, restricting rights of assembly and protest; it reads like the Chinese government wrote it.

Well gosh darn it, I’m hoping you all get a good look at my pal, Juliana Victoria Chiovitti, who will be in pit lane, preferably in a nice, simple, strapless, just over the knees, cream colored chiffon dress adorned with a small blue carnation, a thin brown leather belt with turquoise buckle and some kick-ass sandals made from hemp. Hopefully this note will prevent some who might otherwise have cancelled.

I don’t believe that this is the group of hackers called “Anonymous” who have hacked various systems to make political points. It is instead a group of thugs hiding behind a convenient existing banner and threatening F1 fans. They have immediately lost any sympathy from me, whatever their cause.

It is insulting that in the past ie the UK riots, the Guy Fawkes masks have been used to cover common criminal activities that have nothing to do with freedom fighting. (Maybe later when euro police and troops patrol our streets and England is abolished, relegated to a sub district of federal europe, then I shall be joining in with my can of spray paint and painting “V” everywhere. All this if arthritis and general mobility permits and of course we have not done the sensible thing and left the EU. :-))

I pulled V for Vendetta off the shelf last night. I still think they fluffed the voice mixdown, that it sets far too forward. Lipsync / voiceover conflict, in style. The impact is excellent at the start, but begins to grate, distract from narrative elements, especially when Portman starts to empathise, she has problems getting that right. But it is hard to bore of looking at Natalie Portman . .

They do overdo these comic book characters, don’t they? 🙂

Incidentally, my mind boggles with what Jerry Maguire (Cruise) was doing running a sports agency on a Silicon Graphics box . . . but IIRC that was the year they gave away their crown jewel, OpenGL, so all silliness.

However much we might deprecate the behaviour of this bunch known as “Anonymous”, it ought to have a positive side-effect: it exposes just how vulnerable many public-facing services actually are. Finding out your weaknesses when faced by this bunch of mainly unskilled idlers doing it just because it’s fun, is far better than discovering what damage a skilled operator with malign intent can do!

Any IT manager who suffers anything more than a ‘Denial-of-service’ outage should be ashamed. An organisation that suffers data leakage such as credit card details, should be prosecuted ‘pour encourager les autre’.

Sadly, the reaction of ‘The Authorities’ is not to learn this lesson (and ensure that all systems try to achieve invulnerability) but attempt just to remove the miscreants from society. Those who intend to remain unnoticed are the ones to worry about…..

However DDoS attacks cause problems at incoming points on networks you do not control. To mitigate such a attack, you need to talk to a lot of NOCs at once, a lot of peers, start re-routing your own AS BGP announces, tons of stuff.

I’ve not ever had to deal with one, but for information’s sake, screwing up your Autonomous System (true connect direct to the internet) setup can take down huge chunks of the internet by accident. You don’t get to play with those for fun.

Yet the kiddies have some amazing tools which exploit the protocols over the net, falsifying time out signals and all sorts to shut down a website in a jiffy.

What is sad, is the infrastructure to protect against this would make Orwell weep. Dual purpose.

But then again, people frown on kids playing with pocket knives, or climbing trees these days.

So, what is the difference?

Take away the simple excitement in life, and then there’ll be another outlet.

I think the policy has the purpose to weapon classify this tech, but I am not sure just how much real economic damage it is doing. I can’t find a study.

What we all assume is it’s either spotty teens or mafiaesque or national teams.

Thank you Obama, you confirmed the latter of those. So what kind of example did that set? Government cannot keep something quiet? My Uncle is spinning in his grave now.

This is an incredibly hard problem, because we mix the need to teach kids to be competent with modern tools, with the moral questions they may only be able to grasp later.

However, for the record, the USA voted against the international X.500 protocol process and unilaterally introduced the inherently insecure and not securable TCP/IP suite.

For sure, X.500 is dimensionally difficult to implement. The graph problem is a bitch, but far more solvable now. But many who read that process, believed the purpose of the no votes, were precisely for ease of intercept. There really were other factors preference TCP/IP, but who here remembers “bakeoffs” because one box couldn’t talk to another? Glitches remain to this day. It might be a toss up, between what would have been very hard to do (and get everyone to agree to, hence slowing growth) and something we now have to keep bandaging.

Does anyone have a link to a paper which says script kiddie damage is worse proportionately than youngsters scrumping for apples?

F1 brands itself as the height of technology. It’s not a vulnerable, underfunded community organization, who wouldn’t be expected to have best practices in place. If it can’t get basic network security right, it deserves what it gets.

The worst that should happen is a severe Denial of Service attack overloads the public facing F1 websites – it’s very difficult to mitigate against that, especially during a race when the site’s already under huge load.

But if Anonymous are permitted to do anything more than that, like steal personal details, or disrupt the broadcast, or race control, or team operations, it’s F1’s fault, and F1’s alone…

After reportedly having made an offer of settlement yesterday , presumably a smaller tuition increase , the students waited for an answer from the government , and now talks are said to have broken down .
Rumour now has it that the government may fall over this issue , and an election may be called .

Joe – I write as one of your Canadian readers who is also an active racer.

The escalation we’ve seen in Québéc started with a protest about the rise in Québéc University Tuition Fees, but to be frank, that was a mere pretence.

A student at a “so so” English University will pay £9,000 a year, or Can$ 14,400. A Québéc student at the very prestigious McGill University in Montréal will pay Can$ 2,492 per annum! Just a tad cheaper!

The proposed rise in fees for next year is all of $325 – at a minimum wage job, a student would have to work just over 1 hour extra a week over his 30 week terms “slinging burgers” to pay that fee increase. Or alternatively, drink 2 less pints of beer a week….

Onviously, the protests are not really about the fees increase – they are just a “tempest in a teapot”. It seems to me that what this is all about is the decline of the separatist movement in Québéc. The provincial Parti Québécois, and the Federal Bloc Québécois have both been decimated in the polls with the rise of the New Democrat Party, now headed by a Québécois, Thomas Mulcair.

Clearly, a few of the younger separatists were looking for a basis of protest, given that elder citizens seem to be reasonably happy to be Canadians. They hit on the tuition fee increase as a convenient cause – but the level of violence and damage caused in their riots is far and away more serious than protesting a $325 fee increase – that was the smokescreen to cover a widespread campaign of civil disobedience.

This is exactly the sort of atmosphere that Anonymous seems to thrive in – hence, their increasing involvement.

It must be particularly galling to them that the GP is so well liked in Montréal – the circuit is close to downtown, just a subway ride away, and the city really goes out of its way to celebrate. I’ve no doubt you’ve had a beer or two on Crescent or Bishop yourself!!

But, as we’ve seen in Toronto with the Anonymous protests at last year’s G20, they have “staying power”. A little urban violence breaks out here every so often just to keep “Toronto’s Finest” on their toes, and remind the populace that “big brother” Anonymous is still looking after its interests!

Really, the name says it all – Anonymous is a loose collection of anarchists with no obvious leadership. I suspect that it has a mea culpa mentality – Canada has escaped the European Economic Meltdown and things are still pretty good here, so we should all suffer for having missed the catastrophe!

This no doubt unites the far left and far right of the political spectrum – presumably they think Canadians have escaped the worst of the financial catastrophe and are sitting here “fat, dumb and happy” – and they intend to change that!

None of this bodes well for the G.P. Politics in Montréal have been ratcheted up to a fever pitch, a high level of violence and damage seems to have been reached, the Anarchists and hard left have united – and Anonymous has a proven staying power.

I can’t see them easing off and giving the G.P. an easy time – I fear we’ll have even more trouble on the streets as the weekend approaches, and the Sûréte have been spectacularly unsuccessful at curbing the violence so far, even with a somewhat “neutral” crowd of bystanders.

Can you imagine what would happen if Anonymous looked like disrupting the GP and ruining the weekend for a bunch of, say European fans who had spent many thousands to go to the GP?

Unlike at present where bystanders don’t get involved, I can see major riots if Anonymous try to interrupt the GP and the fans have an opportunity to protest against the protesters. Just how long the authorities would allow that to go on is the question – based on the past few weeks, I fear the GP could be suspended for public safety reasons pretty quickly.

They should just kick the Canadian students out of the universities and replace them with students from the US. Who pay $30 – $50000 in tuitions. I don’t think there would be a single student complaining about tuitions anymore..:D

The Quebec government has admitted their eventual goal is a more than doubling of tuition rates. Their incremental ‘slowly boil the frog’ approach hasn’t worked.

You’re also wrong in combining the protesters with Anonymous. The protests existed months before Anonymous clued into them. There aren’t 250,000 “Anonymous” supporters in the streets, there are 250,000 Canadians who are fed up with their government’s actions.

The Quebec government vastly over-reached by banning public gatherings, in doing so they’ve brought much of the public at large to the side of the protesters. The current government it too pig headed to even negotiate in good faith. As a result, the Grand Prix will probably be a fiasco. For this, Quebec government will have only themselves to blame.

Governments are elected. If they become unpopular they are not re-elected. Protest is fine but not if it is targeted at disrupting other things. If the goal is to disrupt then it undermines the credibility of the cause. French truck drivers took a long time to learn this lesson.

And when the elected government violates the national constitution? What then? Wait for the next election?

There’s a reason many national constitutions guarantee the free right to assembly. While that right can certainly make things inconvenient, it’s also kind of the point.

I’ve attended the Montreal race on more occasions than I can easily recall, but I completely understand that there are more important things in the world. One of them is democracy.

There aren’t 300,000 “Anonymous” supporters in the streets, there are 300,000 Canadians who are completely fed up with their government. If that causes some like me to cancel our visits Montreal this year, fair enough. Maybe the government will get the message.

If the government has the right to introduce emergency laws to deal with an emergency situation (which most do) then they are entitled to do so. If you do not like what they do challenge them in the courts, and dismiss them at the next election. This is how democracy works.

Joe, is that “Notice to Grand Prix Visitors” from Anonymous? That’s quite the threat. I know that student groups (or protester groups anyway) have stated they will disrupt the GP weekend, and that Anonymous said they were going to disrupt Internet-based systems (closing the site, releasing confidential information of ticket-buyers, etc). I hadn’t realized they were now crossing into the real-world (although I wonder if they are going to piggy-back on the student protesters and claim responsibility for some of that violence). Threatening fires and attacks on hotels is definitely terrorism (by definition they are at least attempting to spread fear and terror, thus being terrorists regardless of whether it’s for “good” or “bad”).

With the latest talks at an “impasse” and therefore halted, the recent protests are now bound to escalate, especially over next weekend. I really hope the violence and damage is kept to a minimum on both sides.

As for economic hardships in the city; it’s already happening. People are staying away, shops are closed and tourists are heading to Quebec City instead of Montreal (where the protests are now spreading to).

Who knows if it was even “the” Anonymous that posted that note. Anyone can claim to be Anonymous, that’s kind of the point.

The protesters at large have not threatened physical violence to anyone. The protesters at large are not “Anonymous”. The larger the protest movement, the more side groups try will try to dilute the overall message with their own.

For those attending the Grand Prix, the problem won’t be Anonymous and it won’t be violence, it will be inconvenience. With only a short, three stop Metro line servicing the venue, it will be trivially easy for peaceful protesters to prevent the majority of fans from reaching the race.

If the Government continues to negotiate in bad faith, I expect fans trying to reach the track on race day may find themselves watching the race in hotel rooms or bars. For “some”, I suppose such inconvenience rises to the level of terrorism. I classify being forced to watch a sporting event on TV as a “first world problem”.

As a Canadian that has recently convocated from a University elsewhere in Canada, and has huge 11 year student loan debt, I feel disgusted by these protesters. Quebec has the lowest tuition fees in Canada, and so these protests seem more like spoiled kids deciding to spend a summer in protest rather than work an intern or menial labour job. The actions of the “hacktivists” is just an opportunistic attempt to garner attention over a non-issue. The choice is to raise tuition or take money from other social services, and its clear the protesters and “hacktivists” would rather put a few dollars in the pocket of the highly educated instead into food programs for the homeless or whatever social program gets the cut. In conjunction with this they are hurting the people of Montreal in a major way by disrupting business, adding more hardship to people who actually work.

Bravo! Hopefully some of the youth in Montreal can break away from the Herd, lose the “pack” mentality and look objectively realizing how fortunate they are. Its refreshing to see someone who is young stand up and factually take issue with the entitlement of these kids. We need more like you! If youth think they have it tough in Canada they have absolutely no idea of what is going on in the world, period.

You said personal info of ticket buyers has been published by these idiots? I sincerely hope that does not include things like address and credit card info, allowing identity thieves to jump right on it…

From what I heard last week, that was exactly the type of information they were going to go after (credit card numbers, etc). Not sure if that’s still their plan (apparently they have wider goals at this point).

Joe, lets keep “Anonymous” (whoever “they” are…) and the students separate. There was a clear message just yesterday from student groups that they DO NOT plan to “disrupt the race” – which makes good sense. They can have international coverage of their issues, but if they choose disruption, then they will be branded as hoodlums/whinner/terrorists/etc (take your pick). Oddly enough it was government sources that claimed students would disrupt the race. Now why would gov’t spokesnobs say that?… oh, wait….

The long and short is that regardless of how you feel about the tuition increase (I work at an Ontario University, with one kid in university – and current tuition in Ontario is 2x Quebec rate – it is higher if you go into “professional” schools, architecture, MBA’s, dentistry, doctor, optometrist, etc) it is a little hard to understand the degree of upset over a tuition increase. What the real cause of the problem is now, however, is the Charest gov’t response – trying to make basic democratic rights (like the right to assemble, you know, like a “protest”) illegal. That has students and lots of other groups upset. That’s what happens when you try to put out the fire with gasoline (and I’m not talking about the fire in the Williams garage at Spain).

The students were calling F1 ‘sexist’ last week, (among other names). Funny that – as quite a few students work part time in some of the strip clubs downtown to earn extra bucks, (probably more then their professors!) Interesting how we don’t see them protesting and invading any of these sexist peeler clubs… A lot of my friends (more then 20 or so) will be in Montreal working the race (as corner marshals and pit lane firefighters) and I dare say – they won’t be pushed around or impeded by 20 something students…

As a Canadian (and a f1 fan) I’m discusted by the the behavior of a minority of students. The disruptions caused to the race (of any) still pale in comparison to the disruption to the majority of students who want nothing more then to recive the education they have paid for. Let’s face it f1 is great, but the future of good kids is far more important. That being said I don’t think they can really affect attendance for the race much as I’m sure most people ( like myself) have had their tickets and hotel reservations for quite some time and won’t want to lose what amounts to more money then these students (parents) are being asked to pay in increases.
Anyway just my thoughts, love the blog keep up the great work!!

Looks like Canada finally sank to the same level as most other terrorist nests, (organisation is to good a word for those ididots). pretty soon the international motor racing community is going to compare us to Bahrain)

What amuses me is that just because people don’t agree with the students, they want to deny them their right to legally protest… if the Montreal GP gets messed with I shall be very annoyed, but not with the students and their rights… I am happy that [some] people are realizing that there is a gradual erosion of freedom in most countries and that we are kept docile by governments allowing us toys… when the majority wake up and realize the reality, it will probably be too late. Greed and corruption are not just the hallmarks of F1. Most governments in the world are embroiled in all sorts of malfeasance and we would do well to wake up and protest. In 2008 I really thought there would be blood on Wall Street [amongst other financial districts] as citizens protested at the rapacious and profligate ways of bankers and financiers… but not so. Greece will, in all probability, decent into some kind of major civil unrest. Whet the student protest has done is to highlight yet another government full of malpractice; if the GP gets caught up in the action, so be it. Earlier on another post I commented that those who spoke out in favour of boycotting Bahrain would support the activity in Quebec. But most people seem not to see the parallels: they only compare the fiscal side of things. As a Quebec resident I pay a ton of tax and am happy to do so if it contributes to an equable social system: what I dislike is the rise of bureaucracy and nepotism, backhanders and corruption that is evident in many elements of Quebec society. I think that the students do have an underlying message; though I don’t think it is necessarily to do with the separatist issue. I think it is merely that people are fed up of begin screwed over by greedy and self-interested politicians. So, whilst I will be annoyed if the protests spoil the GP weekend, I have a lot of sympathy for their cause and admire their willingness to risk jail to stand up for their beliefs: that is more than most of the readers of this blog are prepared to do!

The GP has everything to do with it as it is funded out of the public purse… And the benefits, such as they are, are restricted to a realtively few people, mostly private individuals. As with the Olympics, most notably those in London, pretty much everything is paid for with taxpayers money and the majority of the fiscal reward goes to the shareholders of private companies, leaving the average taxpayer with an increased burden. If you want to research the benefits of large scale sport events, there is ample evidence to support the thesis that they do not actually do any long term good except to a few individuals. For sure there are plenty of cost-benefit analyses produced before the event that claim extraordinary benefits will be accrued by the public: however, there are almost no post-event studies to explore the claims of the pre-event studies. Most such analysis is extremely flawed and usually paid for by the parties interested in promoting the event. I love motor racing and have been looking at the new WEC with interest. Ticket prices that are extremely affordable, no huge fees for race promotors and free live streaming coverage on the Internet, now, that’s a model worth exploring: oh, and the cars actually overtake each other. On another note: congratulations to Dario Franchitti, my fellow Scot, on his third victory in Indianapolis. Quite the achiever yet very little coverage…

And when people talk of the money flowing into Montreal, realize that the majority of it flows straight back out. For example, most hotels are owned by multinational organizations which offshore profit into tax havens, they pay the minimum wage to students struggling to survive economically and who need to work to support their studies, new immigrants who are unable to find work that matches their skills and/or experience, etc. These are the realities of the world we have created… social injustice and inequity abound and we [by the fact we are able to go to GPs and chat about the experience are the highly privileged and fortunate few…

I think Karen posted info on some study stating that a GP brings more then $100 million revenue to the race location. If the Canadia tax laws allow ‘majority’ of it to disappear to tax havens, then that’s hardly the fault of the event bringing that revenue in. No?

As another poster pointed out, if you remember the pain that Montreal felt when the Grand Prix was not there, and you are happy with that, support these people. Canada must accept that if it lets these people mess up the Grand Prix, there is no reason why the Formula One group should not mess up Montreal. It is not as if it will have a monopoly on F1 in North American in the future.

Unfortunately, most of the Québécois that I know care not a jot about the Grand Prix and the average Montrealer did not feel any pain whatsoever when the GP was not in the city. Now, if the Jazz Festival were cancelled, that would be a very different situation (most of the money generated by that festival stays in Montreal and Quebec, unlike the GP).

Joe, you often write about mostly Asian states buying into the Ecclestone plan of an endless cycle of price hikes for GPs which are used as objects in strategic plans of destination enhancement (often nothing more that vanity), and when you do, there is always a sense in your writing that you feel the purity of the sport is being tarnished by such activity. As a consequence, I find it strange that you do not accord the bankrolling of a GP by a corrupt provincial government in Quebec the same tone.

Many of your commentators on this particular post are plainly ignorant of the underlying issues in the province. Your earlier comment about people being able to vote out a government is precisely one of the objectives of the students: Charest has to face an election within 18 months or so; the protestors want one more immediately. And they want the government brought to account for its alleged corruption.

As for your comment about if Canada lets… etc., what exactly do you mean by saying that FO Group can mess up Montreal? That just doesn’t make sense…

Finally, for I am sure this post has gone on long enough, from a conceptual perspective what is the difference between Bahrain and Montreal? In both, citizens who feel their rights are being challenged by their government are choosing to stand up and protest that government. In both, the protestors felt that the GP was a legitimate target. For sure there are any number of detail differences, but conceptually, they are very similar. Though I am sure there will be many who will disagree with this comment!!!

I don’t disagree with the similarities to Bahrain. In both cases I do disagree with F1 being used as a political tool. It does appear to me that the powers in F1 allowed it to be used more so in Bahrain than in Canada. I haven’t seen Canadian local gov advertizing F1 as the ‘unification’ event. Though, if they would, I don’t think Bernie would care. As long as he gets paid.

“(most of the money generated by that festival stays in Montreal and Quebec, unlike the GP)”

Could you elaborate on that? You stated that hotels are multinational chains and the profits disapper to tax havens. Surely at least that part is no different between F1 and the jazz festival? So what part is?

There are a numberof factors that make the economic impact different- the durationof the GP is short whilst the Festival is much longer, as a consequence there is a greater chance that people will be mobile and spend their $ in a variety of outlets each day. The GP is tightly packaged to encourage maximum spend within the confines of the event. Many tourists who come to Montreal for the GP buy packages complied by international companies that offshorethe profit. Of course, there is leakageinto the general economy. Also, many people, because of the high ticket price of the GP minimize their spend: the festival is much cheaperto attend, hence people are more inclinedto spend more whilst visiting g the city. Etc.

Acworth,
in the USA the government, at ALL levels, is not just fat, but could clinically be defined as MORBIDLY OBESE! I would assume that in Canada it is much the same. If these students weren’t so easily manipulated by left-wing moonbat profs, they would ferret out, ruthlessly, the parasites (generation after generation of families) in the bureaucracy. They would then find plenty of money to help, not just themselves, but also the needy. In 1974, a high school teacher of mine, thru nepotism, got herself appointed to a new position in city government, population approx., 165 thousand, created out of whole cloth, just for her. She would be in charge of culture! I don’t remember the exact title (perhaps it was a precursor to Culture Czar, lol). The city was broke! She, btw, was teaching a new course called Urban Affairs (how to revitalize the cities etc). I pointed out to her that the cultural institutions we had, 3 excellent museums and a terrific library system, was created at the turn of the century by philanthropy of capitalists. To make a long story short, (I know, too late), we needed meaningful job creation. Not more people sucking ever-depleting tax revenue. Naturally, this went over like a lead balloon. She was on the payroll when, in 2004, an FBI swat team from D.C. swooped in on city hall and arrested the mayor and others. In broad daylight! Carted away computers and boxes of files etc. Evil doesn’t always wear horns, a pointy tail and carry a pitchfork. There is an unholy and UNHEALTHY alliance between the School Industry and governments at all levels here in America. It is cancerous.

J(oJ),
I’m an American, so the school terms (prep) etc ‘tween you and I will not coincide. The surname use was just for ease, please don’t read into it more than that. I know, personally, a great number of people who “work”, and I do use that term loosely, in the school “industry”, and make no mistake about it, it IS an industry! The salaries and bennies, from the presidents on down to the personnel in admin is grotesque. It has been soaring for decades, yet the mass media ignore it. Why? Because they’re cut from the same cloth. Relatives, friends, or drooling over the prospect of getting on the gravy train themselves! I’m not going to get into “income disparity” arguments, except to say, if one cuts out the fat in the government offices that run these programs, one would see enormous savings.
Regards,
Tim

Hmm. Gravy train? I live in the SFO Bay area, and with a school teacher’s salary, you can’t afford to live here. So teachers w/o a significant other with better salary commute 2-3 hours each way. Which added to the lenghts of the work day plainly sucks.

Not a gravy train I’d like to take…

BTW same applies e.g. to police and fire dept personnel.

IMO school terachers should have a fair compensation, but also adequate performance requirements. Just like any other job. And they are taking care of the most important people in parents lives….

Where is it written that one’s salary should GUARANTEE one to live ANY where one chooses!? SF? Most expensive, or damned near, area in U.S. It’s called the FREE market-place, btw. Supply and demand. Your free to choose a less expensive place to work/live. The parents raise the children, btw. The schools should confine themselves to the three r’s (figuratively). Point is, a few hundred $ p/a for the students parents, and the entire F1 community, as well as the businesses of Montreal must put up with this charade? That dog won’t hunt!

Oh, your solution is to have the schools located where the teachers can afford to live with the salary they are given? Like central valley? And have the parents drive 6 hours a day to drop off and pick up the kids? Brilliant idea buddy. Your thinking is overly simplistic and frankly does not provide any productive input to the real life issue.

I was pointing out that your claim that a teacher’s career is a gravy train people want to jump on just because it’s such an easy life is seriously flawed.

If you read my post, you should note that I did not claim teachers ‘raise’ the kids. I said they take care of them, and do so several hours per school day. As a parent, one would think one had some interest in who those people are.

One thing we agree to is that the actions of Montreal students are not based on any real issue. Even after the tuition increasers they get a better deal than anybody else on this continent.

One doesn’t “have the schools located where the teachers can afford to live”. You have things backwards! Schools are built by LOCAL taxes and manned according to supply and demand. People have schools built near their homes (thinking of their CHILDREN first)! And we all know that the teacher’s think of the children first,right? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. My idea ain’t brilliant,
pal, it’s in line with REALITY! And that’s what your bent outta shape about. Reality. Real life. The reality is, he who pays the piper, calls the tune. My claim ain’t flawed. Teachers today put in fewer hours than in the sixties (teacher in-service days? personal days, sick days, vacation & summers off?). They get payed, with bennies, way more than justified and the results are atrocious. Even Mayor Bloomberg, of NY, big Lib, recognizes the ills.
I did indeed, regrettably, read your post. Teachers DO NOT “take care of” students. They (supposedly) teach/instruct. Parents, family members, baby sitters, Care-Givers etc., take care of children or others, as the case may be. Oh yes, I’m very interested in who is teaching in our schools. And if they are unhappy by the time they arrive in the morning (after their commute, or for whatever reason), they shouldn’t be within a country mile of children.
Yes, I agree that the students in Montreal are, effectively, on a jolly. If they can’t handle this problem with grace then they’ll get rolled by much tougher challenges in life. And probably a lot sooner than they think. And how ’bout that Scott Walker, Gov. Wisconsin. Yeah baby! Landslide defeat of the recall/unions/libs of 17% as I write. This is my final word on the matter.
My apologies to Joe. I’m happier talkin’ F1!

In order for your supply and demand, which you keep repeating over and over, to work, the schools would need to have an ability to adjust the pay for the teachers.

Demand for teachers is created by the number of kids at school age. If pay is too low, nobody takes a teaching job, and hence teacher salaries need to be increased. Until they are high enough so the vacancies can be filled. And the teachers can live a reasonable distance from their work place.

That’s just not how it works. Like you state, public schools run on tax money, which is limitted, and has been cut for many years. Hence the teacher’s pay is what it is (police, fire dept etc, same story). And instead of bitching about their seemingly short working hours, it would be pertinent to appreciate that some actually agree to do the job.

Hence your thinking is overly simplistic. Did a teacher take your toy away when you were at school, or what is your gripe against them anyhow?

Sorry, Tim, over here Prep School is varying 8/9/10 up to 13, when you are supposed to take fairly important exams. The kind that decided your career on Korean levels of binary logic.

The Prep school system in private hands, as enterprise of a sort, used to have really quite a perverse mix of Victorian disciplinarianism, and Edwardian intellectual overtones.

Therefore, calling a child by their surname was one of those commonalities, to reduce the possibility for upstart individualism, and a part of the dissociation and reductio of humanity. My own “prep” school was in fact the opportunistic replacement for that which Orwell wrote a famous and searing lament.

Albeit, at the time, the world had moved on, liberalism was in full flow, many of my teachers were in their late years. So I grew up in this time warp. Not familiar to all. But echoes of it still resound in many minds. Let me just say, we worked/studied from 0830 until 2100, 6 days a week, or were otherwise occupied. There were indeed wonderful masters. You called your teacher a master. Interesting, hmm. But mostly, violence was semi officially sanctioned. Actually, often explicitly.

Rebellion was simply more interesting, in my childhood experience (and boy, did we try)!!

I’m a Montrealer going to the GP next weekend and I decided I will walk to the circuit. I heard news that the metro will be swarmed by protesters – their meeting point looks like the Berri-UQAM station – yellow line quay – at 10h30 Sunday June 10th. Joe, is there anyway I can send you the picture of the flyer announcing the protest?

I am not a trained journalist or a good writer for that matter, so I don’t get to attend every race as my job! (I am jealous!) but leaving here in the states Canada gp is my guilty pleasure, we stay outside the city in a small hotel overlooking the river (in St. Jean). If the GP in canceled or people don’t come to see it live, it would be an economic disaster for the region. We became friends with local people everyone tells us from restaurants, hotels etc how the GP saves their year sometimes. Anonymous people are seating miles away with out any concept of what chaos they bring to the real world. My advice to them is unplug get some vitamin D, go meet real people!